Open season

The NSS reports that Turkey is working on treating violence against women more gently, kindly, compassionately – to the perps, that is, not to the women.

Proposals by the Turkish Ministry of Justice to treat sexual harassment and violence against women less severely have drawn widespread condemnation from campaigners.

The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) is “deeply concerned” by the draft proposal and has warned that if passed the plans will allow perpetrators of crimes normally punishable by five years’ imprisonment “to engage in negotiations with prosecutors to reduce their sentence to one year, postpone their sentence, do community service or pay money to avoid jail time.”

They note that the proposal “covers a number of crimes that predominantly affect women and girls including molestation, sexual abuse, threats and sex with minors. Victims and survivors will not even be consulted in the negotiations” and they stress a background of hundreds of murders of women in Turkey this year alone.

That will happen when you teach people that this other set of people are inferior. It becomes open season.

The BBC reported earlier this year that there has been a “dramatic rise in violence against women in Turkey”, linked by many to the ideology of the Islamist AKP.

President Erdogan and senior members of his party have made repeated statements about women’s ‘traditional’ role in society. In November 2014 he denied that men and women should be on an “equal footing” and said it was “against nature”.

In July the Turkish deputy prime minister told a female parliamentarian, “Madam be quiet! You as a woman, be quiet!”

And if she won’t – punch her.

In their statement the IKWRO note that “since only January 2015, 285 women have been murdered. Perpetrators of violence against women and girls already face minimal charges and often walk free under the outrageous ‘provocation’ rule, which allows perpetrators to argue that they were provoked by their victims.